In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of

real media products?

When creating our documentary we didn’t really challenge any forms and conventions of a documentary. We did this so it looked as professional as possible and so if a person watched it without knowing what genre the programme was they would easily be able to identify that it was a documentary.

We considered challenging the stereotypes of baking by using a male voiceover instead of a female to go against the stereotype of home bakers being mainly female, but later decided that an older female would be better to use as this is what the results from our audience research told us to use . Also a woman’s voice may be more appropriate as it is a soft voice and baking is considered a relaxing activity.

Lower thirdsA title located in the lower third of the clip is important in a documentary. It tells the audience who the person being interviewed is and a caption below the name usually tells the audience why they are significant to the documentary.

This screen shot taken from ‘Terror at sea; The sinking of The Concordia’ shows the use of a name tag located in the lower third. This image was taken from a documentary located on channel 4. Although there is no caption saying why the person is significant although the voiceover told the audience he was a passenger on the ship.

This screen shot was taken from our documentary ‘A Piece of Cake’. The screen shot shows the lady we interviewed and then a title and caption telling us who she is and why she is significant to the documentary. We put this text in the same font used throughout the documentary in a black font so it would stand out. We also used the same font so there was consistency throughout the documentary.

Rule of ThirdsUsing rule of thirds is important in a documentary as it is classed as a typical convention. All documentaries we analysed had rule of thirds so we made sure we used rule of thirds in our own documentary. We did this in interviews and in Vox pops.

This screen shot was taken from ‘Educating Essex’. This screenshot shows rule of thirds in action as the man is slightly off centre with his shoulders located in the lower third. By having a person off centre you can have them sat on either side of the screen which adds a slight variation to the documentary

This screen shot was taken from our documentary. As you can see the girl is slightly off centre much like the channel 4 documentary with her shoulders located in the lower third. We had the people we interviewed positioned on different sides to add variation.

Mise En SceneMise en Scene is a term that refers to the scene. It essentially means visual theme which means keeping anything the audience can see relevant to whatever you are producing. So when creating our documentary we had to keep in mind settings, costumes and who we were interviewing.

This screen shot was taken from ‘Educating Essex’. This screenshot shows Mise en Scene. A green screen was used in this documentary so the student looks like she is say in front of lockers which are relevant to schools. Mise en Scene was also used in what she was wearing as she is wearing a uniform so the audience can clearly identify that she is a pupil at the school.

This screen shot was taken from our documentary. We used Mise en Scene here as the lady we are interviewing is stood in a kitchen like area which is where they prepare the cakes in the supermarket. She is also dressed in her work clothes which is a bakers outfit which clearly identifies to the audience that she is a baker.

NarratorA narrator is very important in a documentary. The narrator plays the part of a kind of ‘Voice of God’ which gives the audience key information before an interview begins that is also relevant to the topic the narrator is talking about. Essentially the narrator sets up the next topic to be discussed during the documentary. Many documentaries use this ‘Voice of God’ narration such as ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, Educating Essex and 24 hours in A&E.’ This ‘Voice of God’ narration also occurs in documentaries on other channels such as BBC, ITV and Channel 5 etc.

Our documentary also featured a ‘Voice of God narration. We used the voiceover to introduce new topics and line up questions that would then be answered by those who we interviewed. We chose to use an older woman (around 60) as we felt her voice suited the theme of our documentary as stereotypically older people bake more than young people. We also chose to use a woman as the answers received from our questionnaires stated that most people would prefer a female voiceover for a documentary based on cakes.